Scottie is a story that could as easily be a novel, but it is the true story of athlete Neville Scott.  Above all, it tells of the human spirit, of great ambition in conflict with weakness: a modern Greek tragedy with a redeeming twist.

It is a New Zealand story of a boy who
suffersa traumatic childhood but finds he has exceptional running ability, of a youth who drinks to calm his nerves and feel “normal”, of a young man for whom bravado and exaggeration bring success as a party animal and womaniser.

Olympic and Empire Games pass in a blur, and by 26 he is an alcoholic. The road back is fraught. His great goal becomes, again, the Olympic Games, but it is in a saki bar in Tokyo that the most dramatic moment of Scottie’s turbulent life plays out.

In Scottie, a strata of New Zealand life in the 1960s is brought sharply to life by author Norman Harris, who had a privileged inside view of a famous era and was close to its flawed hero.